The New Book of Martyrs eBook

And in truth the cup overflowed. This misfortune
was too much. Tricot began to complain, and from
that moment I felt that he was doomed.

I asked him several times a day, thinking of all his
wounds: “How are you, old fellow?”
And he, thinking of nothing but the pimple, answered
always:

“Very bad, very bad! The pimple is getting
bigger.”

It was true. The pimple had come to a head, and
I wanted to prick it.

Tricot, who had allowed us to cut into his chest without
an anaesthetic, exclaimed with tears:

“No, no more operations! I won’t
have any more operations.”

All day long he lamented about his pimple, and the
following night he died.

“It was a bad pimple,” said the orderly;
“it was that which killed him.”

Alas! It was not a very “bad pimple,”
but no doubt it killed him.

V

Mehay was nearly killed, but he did not die; so no
great harm was done.

The bullet went through his helmet, and only touched
the bone. The brain is all right. So much
the better.

No sooner had Mehay come to, and hiccoughed a little
in memory of the chloroform, than he began to look
round with interest at all that was happening about
him.

Three days after the operation, Mehay got up.
It would have been useless to forbid this proceeding.
Mehay would have disobeyed orders for the first time
in his life. We could not even think of taking
away his clothes. The brave man never lacks clothes.

Mehay accordingly got up, and his illness was a thing
of the past.

Every morning, Mehay rises before day-break and seizes
a broom. Rapidly and thoroughly, he makes the
ward as dean as his own heart. He never forgets
any corner, and he manages to pass the brush gently
under the beds without waking his sleeping comrades,
and without disturbing those who are in pain.
Sometimes Mehay hands basins or towels, and he is
as gentle as a woman when he helps to dress Vossaert,
whose limbs are numb and painful.

At eight o’clock, the ward is in perfect order,
and as the dressings are about to begin, Mehay suddenly
appears in a fine clean apron. He watches my
hands carefully as they come and go, and he is always
in the right place to hand the dressing to the forceps,
to pour out the spirit, or to lend a hand with a bandage,
for he very soon learned to bandage skilfully.

He does not say a word; he just looks. The bit
of his forehead that shows under his own bandages
is wrinkled with the earnestness of his attention—­and
he has those blue marks by which we recognise the
miner.

Sometimes it is his turn to have a dressing.
But scarcely is it completed when he is up again with
his apron before him, silently busy.

At eleven o’clock, Mehay disappears. He
has gone, perhaps, to get a breath of fresh air?
Oh, no! Here he is back again with a trayful
of bowls. And he hands round the soup.